For many years, the textile industry has sought ways for producing yarns from continuous filaments such that the yarns have the characteristics of a spun yarn comprised of staple. Prior to the advent of synthetic filaments, all yarns were produced from staple products. Synthetic filaments, however, are made as continuous filaments and, in order to provide the desirable effects of staple products, a vast proportion of synthetic filament production is cut into staple length fibers. Such fibers are then twisted into yarns, called spun yarns.
Spun yarns have a particularly desirable characteristic of being somewhat fuzzy or hairy along their length giving them the desirable attributes of softness and cover and, when produced into fabrics, the ability to produce low density, porous, permeable and comfortable materials. Continuous filament yarns also have many desirable attributes but they also have their limitations, particularly in respect to bulk, cover and comfort factors. Nevertheless, continuous filament yarns have replaced spun yarns in many end uses. Of course, it is obvious that if a continuous filament yarn could be made into a spun-like yarn, the otherwise expensive steps of cutting continuous fibers into staple followed by carding, coning and twisting into roving, followed by drafting and twisting further into yarns could be eliminated.
Many attempts have been made to accomplish this feat but various limitations in the resulting product have kept such continuous filament yarns from being complete replacements for spun yarns. In particular, previous methods, such as the very popular false twist texturing method for crimping continuous filament yarns to produce bulk and cover, have had their limitation in that the yarns always end up having a rather synthetic feel and look. This is probably due to the lack of the fuzzy and hairy projections which are present in spun yarns.
It is an object of the present invention to produce a simulated spun-like yarn which is made from continuous filaments and does not have the disadvantages of the prior art.
It is another object of the present invention to produce a spun-like yarn which has high knitting and weaving efficiencies.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a spun-like yarn which has substantially different characteristics from previous bulked yarns while at the same time having the desirable characteristics of staple spun yarn.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from a reading of the present description.